London is at once exhausting and exhilarating. Everything and everyone moves fast. Being young here is a dizzying experience; the city thrusts you up and down, between the highs of rooftop bars and lows of basement flats.
So much has happened since I made the (unimaginative) move to the city, after graduating in the summer of 2021: I’ve moved house twice, worked for three start-ups and now, having found my feet, am comfortably nestled in a flat between Bermondsey and Peckham. When I step out of my front door, a vast network of buses takes me wherever I desire to go.
A typical Friday night entails alcohol and carnage—usually several pints at a messy house party
I recently had a week that crystalised my love-hate relationship with the city. It began on a Friday night, when my best friend Emmeline and I were invited out by our former neighbour Sheryl: an entrepreneurial queer icon, who has a penchant for bubbly and an eye for rare plants. A typical Friday night for me entails alcohol and carnage—usually several pints of lager at a messy house party. It would never usually involve champagne at The Ned.
The Ned is a bank-turned-members-club in central London, where the wealthy go to rub shoulders and close deals. Its 11 floors reek of new money and ambition. I felt a little out of place wearing a hot-pink plunge bodysuit that I’ve owned since I was 17, as Emmeline and I floated after the exceedingly chic Sheryl. We sipped champagne next to an open-air pool, watching tendrils of steam drift across the London skyline while we waited to be seated for dinner.
Several bottles of champagne, a platter of oysters and a lobster later, we found ourselves in the former vault of the bank—now an underground bar. We got in a couple of cocktails and huddled round a table, drunkenly playing a game of “never have I ever”. A few drinks later and the waiter I’d been locking eyes with unexpectedly leant down, his mouth a few inches from my ear, to say, “tonight I’ll be serving you.” I was agog, aghast—but mostly I was flattered. In a bar full of successful, smartly dressed entrepreneurs, he had singled me out for some (slightly twisted) sexual power-play.
For the remainder of the evening, a strange flirty energy simmered between us. Eventually, our fellow patrons drifted away and Emmeline and I were the last people standing in The Vault. As we made our way out, the champagne fizzing through my bloodstream drove me to a small act of madness. I marched directly over to the waiter, paused, whispered “slay” (for my own benefit) and passionately kissed him on the mouth, before sauntering back upstairs.
I woke up the next morning still in my clothes from the night before, with mascara smeared across my pillow. I was back in the grim reality of my grubby home, which had no hot water. Several days had already passed since any of us had had a hot shower.
This is the other side of life in London—the humbling day-to-day experience of paying an extortionate amount of money to live in a house with a faulty boiler and poor insulation.
As our laundry, dishes and armpits festered, we each found our own solution. Sunny made good use of her office’s showers, Lauren temporarily moved out to a close friend’s house and Bill resigned himself to washing with a humble stew-pot—a “whore’s bath”—which I watched him fill from the kettle.
Tuesday came around, along with my period, and I couldn’t face patting myself down with a damp flannel in our inclement bathroom. Bill is a braver man than I will ever be. I could not bear to rock the Bella Hadid slick-back ponytail for another day, so in an act of desperation, I reached out to a situationship with a plea for a hot shower (and the caveat that I really meant hot, not sexy). He graciously granted my wish.
At 9.30pm on a Tuesday, I found myself upstairs on the number 53 bus, contemplating the view from Waterloo Bridge. In less than a week, I had experienced the filthy-rich highs and the less glamorously filthy lows of London life. And that’s the beauty of the place.
